L'affaire Barkha, Vir

There are those who believe that publishing Niira Radia’s tapped conversations with star journalists Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi and Prabhu Chawla et al crossed the line of ‘media ethics’ since they were not given a chance to defend themselves before going public. But I believe the exact opposite. It is the mainstream media – especially the so-called national English newspapers and TV channels - which has violated all norms of media ethics by maintaining a deafening silence over the whole affair. If they are convinced that ‘Outlook’ and ‘Open’ magazines did something unethical, nothing prevented them from publishing the tapes after giving a fair chance to these worthies to come out with their versions. In blacking out the story altogether, they have laid themselves open to the charge of a conspiracy of silence. I have absolutely no doubt that they would have pounced upon it and gone ahead with the mandatory ‘Breaking News’ tagline before others could lay their hands on it if only it had involved politicians or bureaucrats (or anybody else for that matter) instead of a few of their own. [By the way, just imagine asking Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi for their side of the story before publishing the transcripts of the tapes. Powerful people enjoying the whole-hearted support of the ruling dispensation that they are, they would have moved heaven and hearth to kill the story in the womb!! ]

The point to note about the Radia tapes is that none of the dramatis personae from the media fraternity have seriously questioned their authenticity, though Vir Sanghvi did allude - rather feebly, I would say – to the fact that even the magazine (Open) did not vouch for their authenticity.

Now, let us consider the explanations tendered by Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi. Barkha’s contention is that her conversation with Radia was part of the legitimate news gathering activity of a journalist. But a careful hearing of the tapes (or a careful reading of the transcripts) makes it difficult to buy this argument. She does appear to be taking more interest in the Congress-DMK deal making than is normal for a journalist . Just two excerpts from the conversation will suffice. “Oh god! So, now what should I tell them? Tell me”, she says at one point. The context is TR Baalu playing spoilsport by going public with his comments. At another point, she says; “I know. We have taken that off”, in the background of Dayanidhi Maran going around telling people that he was ‘the only acceptable person.’ Notice the use of ‘we’ here. She rounds it off by saying ‘Okay. Let me talk to them again”. This is after Niira tells her; “Congress needs to tell Karunanidhi that we have not said anything about Maran.” In trying to pass off these statements as part of normal journalistic activity, Barkha is stretching our credulity a little too far.

At worst, Barkha can be accused of acting as go-between in the Congress-DMK deal-making over the formation of the government. But Vir Sanghvi’s crime is enormous and unpardonable. Here is the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindustan Times actually taking briefs from a corporate lobbyist on what spin to give to his ‘must must read’ column. He does not stop at that. He promises the lobbyist to talk to her minion and get the final version vetted by her!! [Considering the said piece was on the pricing of a precious national resource like natural gas, it would perhaps not be wholly inappropriate to dub him the journalistic equivalent of A Raja!]
Barkha may still redeem herself. But I am afraid Vir is tainted for life. Given the criteria media barons use to choose their editors, it would not be surprising if a major newspaper or television channel hires his services in future. But I bet the readers will, from now on, always try and read between the lines and see what or whose agenda he is pushing in his writing – even when he is not actually doing so. A case in point is the reaction to the one piece that he has written after Radiagate broke – apart, of course, from the rather disjointed rejoinder - on Nov 20 on his website on the subject of the Prime Minister’s image crisis in the aftermath of the Spectrum scandal.

This, however, is only a self goal scored by Vir. But the greater damage that he has done is to the credibility of the media fraternity as a whole. If a journalist of his stature can act like a corporate lobbyist (and a family retainer of the Gandhis, one may add), who do the people trust? The trust deficit that he has created has made every journalist a suspect in the eyes of the viewers/readers.

A few words about the rejoinders furnished by Barkha and Vir here. For far too long, they have interpreted statements of others, read between the lines, deconstructed their body language, put things in context and added perspective to them for the benefit of the viewer/reader. Why don’t they, for a change, let the viewer/reader do all this in regard to their tapped conversations? After all, neither of them is denying the authenticity of the tapes. Or do they think the viewer/reader is too dumb to do what is their exclusive preserve?